Over the last five-plus seasons, the San Diego Padres have been rather good. Since the start of 2021, the Padres sport a 457-393 record, the 10th-best in baseball across that span. However, they have nothing to show for it, advancing to the National League Championship Series just once and not winning their division since 2006 because of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ dynastic reign.

The Milwaukee Brewers can relate; since the start of 2021, they have baseball’s fourth-best record, but they were swept by the Dodgers in the 2025 NLCS.

San Diego and Milwaukee have been two of baseball’s best teams so far in 2026, as the Padres lead the NL West by half a game ahead of Los Angeles and the Brewers are 3.5 games behind the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central. It’s very early, but there’s a reasonable chance that the teams’ three-game series, which begins tonight at 7:40 p.m. ET, could serve as an NLCS preview.

San Diego will have Bradgley Rodriguez serve as an opener, likely ahead of Matt Waldron. Meanwhile, Milwaukee will start Brandon Sproat.

Let’s break down this matchup with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook.

San Diego Padres at Milwaukee Brewers prediction, preview

After a hot April, the Padres have slowed down so far in May, going just 5-5, but their two-game winning streak (combined with the Dodgers’ stagnant offense) has allowed them to rise to the top of the NL West again. However, their impressive surface-level record — 24-16 — masks a soft underbelly, as their run differential is merely equivalent to that of a 20-20 team. Both their rotation and bullpen have regressed overall despite closer Mason Miller having one of the best relief pitching seasons in MLB history, and their offense, which ranked 16th in OPS in 2025, ranks third-to-last so far in 2026. Fernando Tatis Jr. is one of few qualified hitters without a homer, and offseason acquisition Nick Castellanos has been worth negative-0.8 WAR already. To be fair, San Diego’s bullpen could get better eventually, as Adrián Morejón’s 2.74 FIP is more or less on par with the 2.08 ERA he posted last season, and Ron Marinaccio has a sizable discrepancy between his FIP and ERA. For now, though, the Padres will surely hope to go into the ninth inning of every game with a one-run lead and relying on Miller to handle the rest.

The Brewers, meanwhile, are hot. They’ve won nine of their last 12 games to climb to six games above .500, including several lopsided victories to boost their Pythagorean win-loss total to 24-14. One season after finishing with the best record in baseball behind the strength of the third-best rotational ERA, Milwaukee’s rotation has improved by 0.12 runs so far in 2026 and its bullpen by 0.21 runs. Jacob Misiorowski, who will start tomorrow night, has built off of his strong rookie season, and Aaron Ashby has emerged as one of the best setup men in baseball. As a result, the Brewers have been able to overcome a slow offensive start (23rd in OPS), but even their offense has had a few promising signs; Brice Turang leads the National League in OBP, and outfielders Jackson Chourio and Christian Yelich are both back after missing most of the first month with injuries. Milwaukee should keep climbing up the standings.

San Diego won’t have its best pitcher on the mound. The Padres are a pretty good bet to limit the damage early, as Rodriguez has only given up more than one run once this season and pitched a perfect inning as Waldron’s opener last Wednesday. Waldron had a good long relief outing then, tossing five innings of two-hit, one-run ball, but he really struggled in his first three starts of the season, giving up a total of 15 earned runs across his first 13.2 frames. Still, his advanced stats suggest that he’s gotten pretty unlucky; his expected ERA and expected batting average both sit in the 66th percentile, and he’s done a good job avoiding both barrels and walks while inducing chases and grounders. His struggles to induce whiffs and strikeouts could be problematic against a team with some of the best bat-to-ball skills in the league, but the Brewers rank third-to-last in expected batting average, in part because more than half of their batted balls have been grounders. Waldron’s splits are mixed; the knuckleballer has also been somewhat better on the road throughout his career, although Milwaukee nullifies that by being slightly better at home and against right-handers.

Sproat’s surface-level stats look bad as well, though that’s mostly a result of his giving up seven earned runs in just 3.0 innings in his first start of the season. Since then, he’s allowed three or fewer earned runs in four of his six starts to drop his ERA to 5.87. However, his advanced numbers are worse than Waldron’s; he ranks in just the 21st percentile in expected ERA (5.07), and he’s walked batters at just a 12th-percentile rate because he struggles to incentivize chases, though San Diego’s aggressive plate approach could help some with that. Sproat also has just a 29th-percentile barrel rate, and that might be a problem, given that the Padres have the 11th-highest barrel rate and the 12th-highest expected slugging percentage. Sproat has also been slightly worse at home throughout his career, and San Diego has been slightly better both on the road and against right-handers this season.

San Diego Padres at Milwaukee Brewers pick, best bet

Best Bet: NRFI (+100)

I’m not sure if it makes sense to believe in Sproat, given how bad his underlying numbers have been this season, but it’s hard to trust an offense that ranks third-to-last in OPS and eighth-to-last in runs, even if it has gotten unlucky to get to that point. +100 represents pretty good value, especially with Rodriguez on the mound in the opening frame. Rodriguez ranks in the top quintile in all but three Statcast categories.

Strong Lean: Xander Bogaerts 2+ Hits + Runs + RBI’s (-110)

Nobody on the Padres has been spectacular to the start the season, but Bogaerts (.268/.342/.437 slash line) has more or less performed to his career averages, and he has at least two H/R/RBI’s in four of his last six games. He matches up particularly well against Sproat, who likes to throw either sinkers or cutters to righties; this season, Bogaerts has had an expected batting average north of .300 against both right-handed cutters and right-handed sinkers.